The Path to Darkness
by machievelli
Summary: It is the final straw that broke her back


Ihave always hated the idea a lot of writers use that Revan was some maniac at the end of the Mandalorian Wars. Most men who went through wars went back to their lives without major psychotic episodes, so why should Revan (he or she) be any different?

That is why my version went on to the Jedi Civil War because the problems that allowed the Mandalorian War to go as bad as it did before the Jedi entered it were still there. So I wrote this back in 2008...

**Malachor, in orbit of Malachor V**

I stood in my quarters, looking at the response from the Senate. It was even worse than what I could see through the transparisteel. I flung it against the bulkhead hard enough shatter the pad. Then I glared out that port at the hell I had authored.

"Quintain." I snarled.

**Dxun**

I leaned my head against the transparisteel as I remembered the first time I dealt with Quintain. Gods of all peoples, why did it have to be Dxun for our first offensive? That maniac had placed us in the position of being honorable enough to face the Mandalorians 'blade to blade'. Over a quarter million men all told locked in mortal combat, and out of that abattoir less than thirty thousand had returned. I'd seen the cream of the army we had built from the ruins, that Kavar and Marai had led into that slaughter reduced to bitter dregs.

Marai wouldn't speak to me when they lifted all but the garrison off that hell world. She had merely given me that unforgiving look, and went to be with the men that to her, were more valuable than any jewels.

In my quarters, I looked at our own casualties. Of the 80 Jedi that had led and fought alongside them only seven had returned. Kavar had already told me he was returning to the Council. That one campaign had been more than enough for him. I turned away from the screen, looking at Kavar. "We have to remove Quintain."

"It won't be easy. What do you know about his family?"

"Son of Mateo and Eliz Quintain. Mateo is one of the senior senators." I said. "His father is one of the first who called for our assistance."

He sighed. "Revan. His mother was Eliz Sarcopo. And her brother is Hashna Sarcopo, Prime Minister of Corellia."

I stared at him. "That imbecile came from that family?"

He nodded. "He is one of the least competent officers we have, but no one is better connected."

I looked at the map of Dxun. Marai had been right. It had been bloody and totally useless. But I would get rid of Quintain if it was the last thing I did.

But it wasn't. Oh we got rid of him and every incompetent within that first year. But Quintain wasn't quietly ushered out. Instead he was transferred to BuShips.

In Orbit; NGL 7744

"We need what?" I asked.

"There's a tech with my unit. He's a wizard at gravitics. He came up with a theoretical weapon that can end the war with one shot." Marai said.

"Not another one!" I held my head, shaking it. Every month some super whiz kid came up with a panacea weapon. The term means the perfect weapon to 'end the war'. The one person I had thought above such fantasies was Marai!

She sat down. "All right my super genius commander, estimate. Assuming losses stay constant, which we both know is a pipe dream, how long will the war last?"

"Four more years." We had done this brainstorming long before we had actually brought the Jedi into the war. If we had not joined the conflict it would have been fifteen instead of the seven I had first postulated. It was still a long hard slog ahead of us.

"And losses are expected to be?" She hadn't let it go.

I sighed. "Seven million more troops on our side, 22 million Mandalorians since we have to consider anyone over ten as a soldier."

"But you forget the Mandalorian mind." She caroled. "I spent all those years living among them, and the way to beat them is not to chop through the meat and bone. It's to cut off the head. We need to put them in a position where they have to attack. Where Mandalore loses face if we win and hold."

She motioned, and I flipped on the holo-map of the front. We had shoved them back in the last two and a half years, but most of their ship building facilities was still intact and pumping out more ships. Four more years would be seven hundred more ships we had to destroy.

She walked into the field, and motioned toward our left flank. "Everyone has been looking at planet hopping. Through here to Ramda, dogleg to Carisia, then slam into the Mandalorian inner systems. Or through here, Capian to Mardu, then Riebal, then into their home territory. Slow steady a guaranteed win if we are willing to spend those seven million troops." She pointed instead at a small insignificant system on the edge of Mandalorian space. "But if we peck at the edges, then suddenly strike here…"

I walked over to stand beside her. Malachor?"

"Yes. What do you know about the Mandalorian religion?"

I grinned. "Obviously you intend to expound. Pray continue."

She gave me that grin back. "They worship a god of war, sort of like the Echani. He's called Torgal the One Eyed, and he is said to watch over them because that star-" She pointed at Malachor itself," is said to be the one eye he has. Once they had hyperspace capability, they traveled to the Malachor system.

"That system has a gas giant, Malachor V." She touched the control, and the system jumped into closer view. "When that expedition arrived, they circled the planet that was in the life zone, but the crew had dreams, dreams that made them move to orbit Malachor V instead. Their dreams told them that their race was destined to rule the galaxy, and if they stayed true to their code, they would achieve that destiny.

"Their young warriors must journey here. That pilgrimage must be undertaken on the seventeenth of Chokai, once every year and five months in the standard calendar. The young warriors dream their first dreams, and learn their fates. If they cannot make that pilgrimage, every child born between those pilgrimages becomes something outside Mandalorian societies. They are not Mando'a they are not outlanders. They are condemned to be outside society, damned even before they have a chance."

She looked at me. "If we break that cycle, the Mando'a must fight us. They must drive us from that system, even if it means they lose this war." She looked at me, and I saw in her eyes her wish. Not to win, not to beat the Mandalorians. But to end this war once and for all. "If we win there, they must face us, fight us not man to man, not blade to blade, but Mandalore against our challenger. To their minds, we would have already won and only Mandalore can face us. Man to man, ship to ship, it doesn't matter. If he loses, we have won." She spun, grasping my arms. "It comes down to who is best, me if it is man to man, you if it is by ship.

"I know I can beat him, do you feel the same?"

I stared at the insignificant orb, and nodded. "Either of us. He will fall." I grabbed her arms. "What is the plan?"

She explained what this tech, someone named Bao-Dur had postulated a way to trap the enemy fleet where we could smash it once and for all.

Up until then, the Mandalorian fleet had withdrawn if they faced us. It wasn't cowardice. When they stood it was to the last ship. But if it were tactically sensible, they would retreat, leaving us with the field, but not much else.

We had a limited ability to force them to fight, but Bao-Dur had come up with one step further. A way to smash the enemy fleet in one blow; but only if we were unable to beat them, an extension of our own technology that would not only give us the victory, but assure that they had no fleet remaining.

**In orbit of Malachor V**

But what I had discovered on Dantooine was still on my mind. I was considering how to tell the Council what lay beneath their very feet. I agreed. Damn me to all the hells of all races, I had. But when we built the device, we needed something larger than any ship ever built to carry it. Quintain was in BuShips, and he used those connections to the Republic Senate and the High Council of the Navy to get himself placed in command.

**KDY shipyards Kuat**

The ship was new; segments of metal still gleamed, because they had not taken the time to paint it. I looked at it as the shuttle approached, Marai sitting beside me.

"No one ever imagined anything so... huge." I said. "Except for you."

I didn't imagine the damn thing. Marai told me. "We needed some huge ship to transport the device, and that-" She pointed at the giant arrowhead, "-was what BuShips had in the production queue."

We approached, and I could see the ranked guns on her side, the huge dorsal fin with a winged bridge. What maniac would spend what that ship must have cost in the middle of a war?

Of course I knew what maniac. After Costigan's Drift, everyone with half a brain knew Quintain was going to be beached. He had lost too many, failed toomany times. Dxun had been the last straw, but we had finally gotten him sent home.

Oh, not to be cashiered. Being nephew of the Prime Minister of Corellia had saved him from that. No, he was sent to BuShips, where he took a smoothly running machine, and came up with... that.

"Well," Marai was saying. "She's still open to space over half of her length, her frames are naked to space, and she will only support half of the 6,000 men she would carry normally. No fighters, barely able to move. What fool would want to command her in that condition?" I couldn't think of a reply. Marai looked askance then suddenly she knew. I could see that she had realized what I had done to give us this victory.

"I didn't have a choice." I told her. "You told me the mass of the ship we needed to carry the weapon fully assembled. That was the only ship in the inventory large enough. When he found out that this would be the final battle, he leaned on his uncle, suggesting that without his actions work stoppages 'redesign conferences' that kind of thing would delay her indefinitely."

"So we had a choice of the ship we want now, or what, another year and a half of war?" Marai screamed. I nodded dumbly. She gave me that look she had for an apprentice unwilling to lean. "Why didn't you just send me back to Corellia?" She motioned toward the ship. "I would have chopped him into hound food, let myself go to jail for life, rather than have him here."

She glared at me silently. The shuttle had landed, and we'd gone through all of the interminableballyhoo that happens when a fleet commander and senior Army general arrive. We finally reached the bridge; it would be the only part of the ship that would be completed.

Vice Admiral Valentin Lord Quintain greeted us. He might be our junior now, but this was his ship, and he ruled her decks. After showing us around the bridge, he had mounted that throne, rubbing the arm of that chair. All he had to say was one word.

"Mine."

**Malachor: Then**

Seven hundred ships leaped from hyperspace, facing the dozen or so pickets within the Malachor system. I regretted what must be done, but they fought until only one ship was left. We left it alone as it fled. The instant it had left those ships went into action, towing the largest possible asteroids into the approaching lanes where they would force any enemy scouts to drop out outside the system. What those scouts would not know was that the Republic's engineering division had rigged them with engines. Each was large enough that nothing could drop out of hyperspace inside the system, and more importantly, none could escape into hyper inside their gravitational reach. For several days, we puttered around the system, every move recorded by scout ships we 'allowed' to escape. It was twenty days before seventeenth of Chokai when I called the last staff meeting.

I walked into the command briefing room. Only five people awaited me.

Malak Vitoris Sanso Karath and Marai. Jedi all except for Admiral Saul Karath. I wore the armor I had assumed since the weeks before the Jedi officially took command. Except for the Jedi, none of the men under my command had seen my face.

I removed the facemask pushing the hood back. Here I could be the girl I still was instead of the cold efficient Admiral.

The ranks of the Jedi had been harrowed, as had the men we led. Of the 1500 knights that had answered my call, only 400 still lived, less than 200 were still whole.

"The plan is this. I will command 30 ships here at the center with Marai commanding over half of the Marines. The rest, of you will divide the remaining ships commanding 120 each. You will leap out but only about two light years close enough that a signal will get you here in just a few minutes."

I motioned toward the locations. They would come in from the four regions behind the Mandalorian fleet, assuring the Mandalorians had to fight even to escape.

I touched the mask. I had hated it for years. Soon I could put it aside forever. "This depends on all of us to succeed."

The alarm went off. I had been eating, and dabbed my mouth as I touched the annunciator. "Admiral? The Mandalorians have arrived." Commander Vert reported.

"How many, commander?"

He gave me a grim smile I could hear in his voice. "All of them, sir."

I understood what he meant when I stepped onto the bridge. The count was already over four hundred with more coming as I checked my repeater. Most were corvettes and gunboats, a lot smaller than my frigates. They outnumbered us over ten to one, but when it came to firepower, we were only outgunned by five to one. Then at the rear of their formation a larger ship arrived.

"Vikrant. Mandalore has arrived." Vert reported. I looked at the screen. Behind our formation, there was a scattering of diamond drops. My surprise, sheathed in the best sensor absorbing material known to the Republic; it was our one chance to survive.

I stood, staring at the screen. They were approaching slowly. They knew I was in command here. We'd made sure that they did. It was gratifying that they thought they needed this many ships to guarantee my defeat. "Well since this is my party, we had best make sure our guests receive a proper welcome." I said. There was a surprised giggle from a rating down on the lower command level. I turned, and she flushed. "Rating, I hoped someone would laugh. We will have little chance to laugh today. Communications, signal the task group. Retrograde 180 degrees, best speed. "Signal Balefire."

The ships turned. At our center, surrounded by a hemisphere of smaller ships was _Ravager_. The largest ship of our formation, she was twice the size of my frigate _Conquerant_ and half her speed. If I were to command from the greatest ship, she would have been my flagship.

The enemy closed, the smaller ships closing faster than the larger ones. It was a Mandalorian trait I had counted on; their young commanders were picked for their aggressiveness, not their caution. Surreptitiously, my eyes went to the flight time indicator. 45 seconds. Too soon, if I triggered my surprise the enemy would have plenty of time to prepare and evade against weapons with less than ten seconds on their drives. I turned pacing away from the repeater. Patience, something Kavar had in abundance, even Marai was my better in that regard.

Turn walk back. 30 seconds; still too soon; half of them would be wasted. The gust front of the enemy fleet slowed, and I stiffened. "Admiral, they've flushed their fighters." Vert reported. I looked at the screen as that horde dropped toward us. 3,412 fighters. The fighters alone could slaughter us if they closed to striking range. Then the smaller warships surged forward, the larger ones moving to take up station where they could cut off our escape.

"Launch ours." I ordered. Not that it would do that much good; all of my ships could muster only 624. Even if every pilot were to kill five of them for every man we lost, they still had enough to smash us into wreckage. "Tell them…" What, I wondered? Die well? Fight until your dead? I wasn't that heartless. "May the Force be with you, and I would rather be there with them." I turned. One more circuit I decided.

Walking back, my eyes were on Vert. He had matured in the last three years, from senior lieutenant aboard this very ship, to her commander. But he had a quirk. He got nervous, and asked questions, usually right about the best time to strike back.

"Admir-"

"Signal Hellfire." I ordered.

I looked as the signal went out. We had three seconds to the edge of the field before the weapons would fire. Three seconds that stretched into a minute if their nerves were stretched tight.

The weapons were missile pods. Each held ten missiles each. They had been judged as inefficient over 50 years earlier, but like any weapon system, there had been a delay between that assessment and the date of final production. But this exceeded even the usual stupidity of the Republic's procurement department.

Try 20 years of producing an inefficient weapon. But I had found a use for them. It was an old trick, and would only work once.

But it had to work only this once.

2000 pods, ten missiles each…

20,000 missiles speared into their formation. Each had been set with specific targeting parameters, range to target, then size. That was why I had spread them across a light second wide disc. A blunt wedge of destruction that ripped halfway through their formation. Half were proton warheads, the remainder concussion missiles, with flight times between two and ten seconds, too fast for most people to react, a lot of times too fast for even a defensive weapons officer to fire a self defense cluster.

There was a ripple of flashes starting at the edge of the fighter formation, racing across it faster than the eye could follow, leaving only devastation in it's wake. Over 2,000 enemy fighters were ripped to shreds along with two hundred larger ships, 150 gunboats and fifty corvettes.

It would have sounded good in the after action report. But we'd destroyed less than half of their numbers, and less than a quarter of their firepower, because not a single frigate had even been threatened.

Our attack had harrowed their fighters, but they still outnumbered ours by two to one. 1412 of them slammed into the 624 we had making a fur ball covering two light seconds. Into that hell ground plowed the front of that fleet. They still had almost 100 hundred ships charging toward us. More than enough to kill us.

"Admiral, TF 4.2 has jumped in!" The sensor officer screamed. I said nothing. Malak always had excellent timing. He must have had every hyper drive warmed and ready. "4.3 came in…4.4, 4.5. The gang's all here!" The enemy fleet on blockade were turning frantically to face the new threat, but our threat was still there, still alive.

Now all we had to do is survive. "Reverse course, all ships drop to steerage way, all energy to shields double front." I ordered. We swung around. "All defense clusters to auto fire." A dangerous order, if improperly tuned, they would blast our own ships.

Missiles leaped toward us, almost a thousand of them. I heard the same rating whispering. I knew what she prayed. The old prayer of any naval rating when the enemy opened fire.

'Oh lord, for what we are about to receive may we be thankful…"

"Sir!" The five frigates at the center of our sphere suddenly leaped to full power. All of them were from the same squadron, commanded by Commander Shiko, one of the few Jedi that remained.

"Order Shiko back into formation!" I screamed.

Communications turned, a sick look in her eyes. She flipped a switch. "Admiral, I regret I cannot obey the order you are about to give. May the Force be with you my old friend."

"And with you." I whispered as each of them began broadcasting in the equivalent of screaming on every frequency known to man making them irresistible targets.

The anti missile clusters began to fire, shredding that hell rain coming at us. 970… 800… 750… 700… 600…

Four hundred and seventy broke through it all. They targeted those five ships and all of them disappeared in a wash of light.

100 missiles screamed through the debris, but the explosions of their fellows had addled them, making them easy to pick off.

My eyes burned with tears, but I refused to cry. Sanso had come in out of position, closer than anyone else, tearing into the back of the ships that faced us.

"Order _Retribution_ to protect _Ravager_, Sanso is to rendezvous then surround and protect those two ships. We're going to go for maneuvering room." I ordered. All of our ships broke up and away, our broadsides smashing into the edge of the enemy formation. I had left our slowest ship there, with our fastest, Sanso's task group to protect them.

We arched around the edge of the enemy as Sanso's units punched through their center. Out system both Karath and Malak had pinned them against the planet, and Vitoris' fighters were charging past them into the enemy rear. We circled the left flank of the enemy line; only perhaps two dozen of their ships were outside of us now. Now to break the flank…

The ship lurched slamming port, staggering as if she had hit a wall. I spun, staring at Malachor V. The atmosphere of the gas giant was pouring toward the position of _Ravager_. "Quintain!" I screamed. I spun running toward the primary weapons panel, slamming my fist down on the override.

It was already too late. The transparisteel of the bridge flashed, everyone screaming as the light of hell flashed in. My mask's visor blackened, and I stood silent. I waited for death, but gradually my visor cleared. Those around me were pawing at their eyes, tears flowing.

"Admiral?" I looked back. Commander Vert stood there, leaning against my command chair. "I think we need another command crew."

"Are you all right, Commander?"

"I am quite blind. But other than that, I am well. Would you call up the command crew?"

I turned away from the port. So many lost, all because of one damn fool. But that wasn't what tore my heart the most.

We'd spent hours gathering the ones still alive, Republic or Mandalorian; they were still alive that was all that mattered. I was sure Marai had died in that hell flash, but the Frigate _Calami_ reported she was aboard. I flew aboard in my shuttle, running toward the medical quarters. There I was horrified to discover what had happened.

"Fugues like this happen, Admiral." The doctor told me. "Something as horrible as what had happened here could drive even the strongest mind into retreat."

"Not Marai." I snarled. "She is the strongest willed person I have met." I stormed past him into the sickbay. Marai lay on the bunk, looking at the overhead as if she had never seen it's like before. I walked over, looking down at her.

"Marai. How do you feel?"

"I'm." She paused, confused. "What happened?" Her hands ran down her body, looking for missing limbs, bandages, finding nothing. She looked at me panicked. "Tell me Revan, what happened?"

I didn't answer her yet. I turned to the Surgeon Lieutenant. "Stabilize any patients you must and get out."

"Admiral-"

"That was not a request."

They cleared the room. My shoulders sagged as removed my mask. I sat beside her. "Marai, I think you need to go home."

"What? But I am fine! I'll be back on my feet ready for duty tomorrow."

"Will you?" I watched her. "What happened ten hours ago?"

"I... I don't remember."

"When they brought you into the medical bay six hours ago, they told the medical staff that you were rocking the body of a twelve year old boy, and singing him a lullaby. That was after you broke his neck. They tried to move you, but you wouldn't let go of the body. Then as if nothing had occurred, you lay him down, said 'Now rest until I return' to him, then stood and asked for reports. You boarded another ship, your marines covering you every step of the way because you were ignoring everything around you. After they had captured that ship, your second in command asked you to come here to see some of your own wounded.

"When you got here, you went straight to that bed, lay down, and didn't get up until a few minutes ago." She gave me a look of confused horror. I reached out, clasping her shoulder. "I am ordering you home. I stood, putting my mask back on. Go back to Coruscant. Get well. If this war goes on much longer, I will need your good right arm again soon."

**Malachor; Now**

She had left three days ago. Then… I glared at the damned pad. There was that.

The door annunciator chimed, and I spun. "Come in, damn you." The door opened, and Malak walked in. He had been different since we had found the secret. More focused.

"Has the senate replied?" He asked. He knew the answer, just not what it was.

Yes." I pointed at the pad I had destroyed. "It is the judgment of the military sub committee that we caused the deaths of over a million and a half of our own men due to reckless tactics. With a codicil that stated that they will publish this unless I award the Senate Medals of Valor to that hero Admiral Quintain!" I walked to smash my boot down on the offending document.

"And the Jedi Council has summoned all of us that survived. We are to be demoted back to apprentice. Each and every one us, until and I quote 'we can show proper humility'.

"No more, Malak. We have been fighting the wrong war from the start. It wasn't the Sith or the Mandalorians who were the true enemy of the Republic. It and still is those bloated things that call themselves senators. It was our own Jedi council that left such incompetent greedy monsters in charge." I picked up my mask. As much as I hated the damn thing, I would need it a bit longer.

"While the Senate debated, the outer rim fell to the Mandalorians. While the Jedi council contemplated, and wouldn't do what needed to be done, the Mandalorians almost did the same to the entire Republic. If we had not disobeyed them, we would have lost. We can't expect them to be happy that we did."

"So what do we do, Revan?"

I turned, my mask back in place. "We don't tell the Council about the Star Forge. We end this war defeat the Mandalorians, find that device.

"Then the war we should have been fighting begins."


End file.
